E-cigarette use is declining — even as the industry eyes teens for new products
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
E-cigarettes hit the market about 20 years ago. They became all the rage among teenagers, and vaping became a verb. Now a new survey, out just yesterday, shows far fewer teens used e-cigarettes over the past year. NPR's Yuki Noguchi has more.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Regulators like Brian King are elated over the fact that fewer middle and high schoolers are vaping e-cigarettes. That number declined to 1.6 million teens. Now, according to the National Youth Tobacco Survey, just under 6% of youth vape.
BRIAN KING: It also represents a decline of approximately 70% from just a half decade ago in 2019, when youth e-cigarette use was at its peak nationally.
NOGUCHI: King directs the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. He says, last year, his agency, along with law enforcement, cracked down on various parts of the e-cigarette supply chain for the first time.
BRIAN KING: The first injunctions against e-cigarette manufacturers, first civil money penalties against e-cigarette manufacturers, first civil money penalties against retailers for the maximum dollar amount, also the first judicial seizures against e-cigarette distributors.
NOGUCHI: He also credited various counter-marketing efforts to warn young people about vaping with bringing rates down. Anti-smoking advocates welcomed the news, but they also noted how the industry is shifting strategy, introducing new products targeting young people. Yolonda Richardson is CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. She says today's e-cigarettes are more addictive because they come in ever-higher concentrations of nicotine. She also noted that other products, notably flavored pouches that secrete powdered nicotine in the mouth, are also gaining in popularity, if not as quickly as e-cigarettes did a decade ago.
YOLONDA RICHARDSON: We're very concerned that the industry continues to find new products, new ways to addict our kids, and increasingly to do so in ways that become really inconspicuous to adults.
NOGUCHI: The FDA's Brian King said the agency is continuing to track who's using those products, and particularly whether they are a gateway for kids using nicotine.
Yuki Noguchi, NPR News.
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